Cincinnati Public Schools to Cut Admin Staff

It’s a new week and a new round of budget cuts are coming to the workers in the Cincinnati Public Schools. This time however it is not the teachers or the administrative staff of the Cincinnati Public Schools who will be out of the schools. This time the job cuts will come from the administrators of the school district. On the bad side the cuts are expected to be only the first round in what is expected to be multiple waves of layoffs for the school district. These cuts are also part of a much larger trend in the state of Illinois, where 65% of districts are reporting that they are going to have to cut back on their staff in order to make ends meet for the coming school year.  The state is looking to cut back by about a $43 million budget hole. The school must find some way to compensate for the budget problems.

Of course, these are not the only layoffs to happen in the state of Ohio. The recent cuts being made to the Columbus Municipal School District let go of a little bit less than 60 workers. For those of you who missed out on that earlier coverage here is an excerpt:

“The Columbus Municipal School District is getting ready to layoff 59 teachers at the end of the school year. They are simply not renewing the contracts of the educators, all of whom have been with the school district less than two years, and these will not be the only jobs lost. Several workers who are retiring this year will not be replaced when they leave the school. Columbus Interim Superintendent Martha Liddell told the following about the cuts to a reporter for Packet Media:

“The cuts will not take our student-teacher ratios above the state minimum requirements of 27:1 at the elementary level or 150:1 at the secondary level. We anticipate that we will hire back 20 or so of these teachers because our enrollment is growing and we must cover critical areas. We’ve already talked to our teachers that have more than 20 years in the system and asked them what their intent is. A number of them have chosen to retire, and we’ll also lose some teachers who are moving out of the district… Our budget is 76% personnel. We’ve also cut athletics, administration, support services and some special programs…We’re also reducing the coaching staff,” she said. “We have eight coaches now at the high school, and we’re looking at cutting it to six. We also had some hefty supplements, and we’re reducing those. For now, no sports have been eliminated,” The school is blaming the layoffs on a number of factors, including a decrease in funding from the state, a smaller tax base for the city to collect revues from and a dwindling fund balance. For nine years of the last 10 the school has been forced to declare a shortfall. So really, this is more of a long-term trend for the city’s schools, then a direct result of the 2008 global economic decline, which affected many millions of workers around the world.

Cuts will be made from all of the schools in the district, though the bulk will come from the high school. This move does leave many people questioning the fate of the new middle school currently under construction by the district.”